Thirty years ago, progressive members of the Trinity community sensed
a need to accommodate the prevailing spirit of freedom and
experimentation among college students, and designed the
Individualized Degree Program (IDP), an alternate way for students to
earn a bachelor’s degree. Continuing the tradition, IDP will hold an
annual fall Open House on Thursday, October 2 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.
and on Saturday, October 4 from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.

Liz
Burns, assistant director of special academic programs, notes that
while alternate degree programs have proliferated, the Individualized
Degree Program at Trinity was a pioneer in adult college education.
IDP provides adults with the flexibility, extended time frame, and
financial help they need to pursue a bachelor’s degree. IDP students
are fully integrated at Trinity, studying the same subjects and
meeting the same academic standards and requirements as their younger
counterparts.

Ranging in age from the mid-20s to the mid-50s (the oldest IDP student
was 80+), many IDP students come to Trinity directly from community or
other colleges, while others continue college education left
incomplete years ago. “Many join IDP feeling that they’re now more
mature and focused and have a better understanding of the value of a
liberal arts education,” Burns explains.

IDP
students have gone on to graduate and professional schools, becoming
doctors, lawyers, engineers, artists, stockbrokers, college
professors, social workers, members of the clergy and teachers. The
ranks of IDP graduates include an award-winning mystery writer, a
physician honored with the Albert Schweitzer Prize for
Humanitarianism, and the mayor of Hartford, Eddie Perez, Class of ’96.